


house of memories

by Noscere



Category: XCOM (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Invasion Era (XCOM), and you want things to return to what they were, but of course that won't happen, that's it that's the fic, you know when your best friend drifts apart?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28126503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noscere/pseuds/Noscere
Summary: After the Temple Ship exploded above the atmosphere, Bradford left XCOM and rejoined the American military. The Commander remained at XCOM, now under the UN umbrella as a military force.It's been an uneasy five years as the world prepares to explore the stars. Bradford followed his orders like a good soldier.Now the Commander is in DC to negotiate on behalf of XCOM.
Relationships: John "Central" Bradford/ OC (current), John "Central" Bradford/Commander (XCOM)
Kudos: 8





	house of memories

The DC bar was quiet at 9 PM, with only the clink of glasses breaking the murmur of the TV’s hockey game. Then again, since this restaurant catered exclusively to diplomats and government officials, Bradford felt distinctly out of place.

But he wasn’t Central Officer Bradford anymore. Not after they had won a war against literal space invaders.

Bradford set his whiskey down. His phone buzzed in his pocket.

Misha  
  
**Today** 9:02 PM  
don’t stay out too late!  
she there yet?  
Still waiting  
if you get tired, I’m in bed :3  
I'll be home before 12  
  


He scrolled to his newest contact.

CMDR Liu  
  
**Today** 6:25 PM  
Running late, apologies.  
Meeting with diplomats now.  
Should be done by 8:45.  
**Today** 6:30 PM  
I’ll book us a private room  
Need food?  
  


The Commander hadn’t looked at the message.

Bradford rolled his shoulders. The waistcoat barely stretched with the movement. He was tempted to undo his tie, but after the five years since he had last seen the Commander, he’d like to make a good impression.

The bartender slid a soda down the bar to Bradford.

Bradford stared at the drink. “I didn’t order this.”

“A Liu ordered it for you. He left a message saying he’ll be here in ten minutes.”

“He?” Bradford blinked: ah, men still predominated in the military. He checked the brand new watch on his wrist. Misha had gifted him the watch after Bradford’s promotion to general. At least his husband had good taste in clothing; saving the world had robbed Bradford of the ability to care about his wardrobe in non-work hours. “Thanks.”

Misha  
  
**Today** 9:14 PM  
I’m about to go nuts  
you can do it, jack! \o/  
lassie’s cheering for you!  
i'll fight her if she ghosts you  
Don’t start an international incident  
you'd bail me out  
She was my best friend  
relax and have fun  
don’t take off your tie  
or let me take it off later  
  


The bell over the restaurant door rang.

“I’ll be fine, Songetay.” The Commander’s voice was deeper, but as measured and calm as he remembered. “Let me know if anything comes up.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The bodyguard stood at a respectful distance away. 

The Commander walked towards the bar: no unusual bulges suggesting hidden weapons. Her blazer was dark red with high cut lapels, emphasizing her broad shoulders, but with no give for a shoulder holster or hidden knife. Her tie was black and shot through with golden threads: no sign of cameras or recording devices in the way it swayed with her walk. The cream-colored dress shirt was stiff: not starched, but definitely hiding the outlines of a nanofiber vest. She had kept the boots from the Anthill, but they were polished to a dark shine. There could be knives there, but not an ankle holster. Fingerless gloves protected her palms, barely hiding the telltale scarring of psionic power burns: ah, that would explain why her bodyguard was willing to stand guard outside.

It was such a contrast from her XCOM uniform that he barely recognized her.

He got off the bar stool and snapped into a salute. The Commander paused, free hand outstretched to shake his own.

An awkward silence fell.

“You don’t report to me anymore. At ease, Central,” the Commander said, a small smile curving her lips. “But thank you for flattering my ego.”

Bradford dropped his arm and shook the offered hand. “Old habits die hard, Commander.”

“Good thing I didn’t fall back on mine,” she said, “the French kiss on the cheeks. Congratulations on your promotion.”

“Thanks. How does it feel to be an internationally famous Commander?”

“Like Atlas.” She slid the package onto the bar between them. “I’m sorry I couldn’t attend your wedding. I hope Mikhail is doing well?”

“Mihail,” he said, “Hungarian, not Russian.”

“My mistake. How is Mihail?”

“Good. How’s–“ Bradford bit his tongue as he remembered her husband was most likely killed during the terror attack on Montreal. “How’s work?”

“We work in the same field.” The Commander raised an eyebrow. “You know how it goes.”

_Meaning it’s all classified and we can’t talk about it at a restaurant._

Bradford internally groaned. He didn’t know why he was expecting the old camaraderie from the Hologlobe to resurge after five years apart. Small talk was excruciating on a regular day, but trying to small talk with his former superior? Maybe he should have brought Misha. At least his husband would’ve known how to break the tension.

And the Commander could take the stick out of her ass and help him out here!

“Do you still prefer red?” the Commander asked. A hostess with a bottle of wine motioned for them to follow. “I had to order in between meetings, but I hope I chose well.”

“I’ll drink anything.” Bradford tucked the package under his arm, close enough for his biometric monitor in his phone to scan it. “You never replied to my text earlier.”

“Apologies, I didn’t want to make you wait with soggy food if I couldn’t make it,” the Commander said.

They stepped into a side room. Another hostess brought out a covered charcuterie board and placed it in the center of a round table. Two chairs sat on opposite sides of the table.

“I’m paying,” the Commander said, nodding her thanks at the hostesses. The two women left. “As I was very late.”

Bradford closed the door behind him and shut the curtains of the room, blocking out the bar outside. He discretely felt the fabric: no listening devices, and his phone wasn’t pinging off anything. His psionic sense didn't feel anything suspicious.

When he turned back, the Commander had already slumped into one of the chairs. He recalled the long days after responding to an abduction in the morning and a terror attack in the evening. Once in the privacy of her office, he would kick off his shoes while she made coffee. The reports for the Council were tedious, but the Command duo had to submit paperwork on time to get XCOM’s monthly funding.

“You’re going to wrinkle your blazer.” He uncorked the wine bottle and poured her a glass. His phone remained silence: good, nothing suspicious.

The Commander waved a hand, eyes still closed. “I wasn’t going in my uniform.”

“You were late because you were _changing clothes_?”

“You’re the stickler for rules. Besides, I give my guards enough work with the target on my back.” The Commander squinted at him. “When did you get off work?”

“Eight on the dot.” Bradford lifted the cover from the charcuterie board. “Changed, walked Lassie, then came over here.”

“I appreciate your patience.” The Commander rubbed her forehead. “Changed at HQ. Came here as soon as I could.”

They fell back into silence. Bradford shifted in his seat. Five years ago he would have known the Commander’s schedule down to when she took her tea break. The silences before had been tired, not fraught with uncertainty.

A red light pulsed at the base of the Commander’s neck, glowing through her blazer’s neck. Psionic power washed over the light.

Bradford raised an eyebrow. He wondered if she could see the movement with her powers. “That’s new.”

“Psionic inhibitors are mandated for foreigners while in the States.” The Commander groped for a cube of cheese on the plate. “It’s not pleasant.”

Bradford bit his lip. In the third year post-invasion, XCOM’s forces had been disbanded, and most soldiers had returned to their home nation to serve as advisors. Psionic soldiers were in high demand in the US. However, all of their psionic soldiers – minus Zhang, the volunteer – had asked for asylum in Canada. They had since disappeared from the map.

His handlers would want to know where they had gone. As far as he was aware, only Washington DC required psionics to wear inhibitors within its borders. The Commander developing psionic potential was a new development. This was valuable intelligence in case someone went rogue and he had to neutralize a psionic force.

The Central Officer in him just wanted to know if his men were still alive.

“Anything we say here doesn’t go back to our bosses.” Bradford took out his phone and turned it off in front of the Commander. “Just like old days.”

“Is it, Central?” The Commander bit down on the cheese. She took out her own phone and turned it off. “You have a duty to your country. I wouldn’t force you to choose. I know what they want you to do.”

Bradford selected a slice of apple. “You of all people should know that my duty is first and foremost to humanity.”

The Commander poured a glass of wine. She toasted him, a mocking smile on her lips. “To humanity, then. _Santé._ ”

“Cheers.”

They drank.

When had the gulf between them grown so wide? The last day in the Anthill had been quiet: just senior staff packing up the most sensitive materials to send to the Council for securing. He had been at her side when the Hologlobe was deactivated. They were on the same flight out to New York to report in person to the Council.

A skeleton crew was now manning the Alpha Base in case the project had to be reactivated. It seemed the friendship between them had been stripped down to its bones, and Bradford wasn’t sure how to navigate the gulf.

The Commander rubbed her neck. “The migraine gets better if I drink.”

“Shame psionics keep you from getting drunk.” Bradford spread hummus over a slice of French bread. “Everyone on your side of the border doing well?”

The Commander hummed. “As XCOM’s Central Officer, you still have clearance to reach them,” she said. “I can’t speak for them, but if it’s to catch up…”

He relaxed at the invitation.

“They deserved better than what the US would’ve offered.”

The Commander raised her glass in acknowledgment. “Any luck finding your family?”

“None. Held a service for them a year afterwards. You?”

The Commander lifted her dogtags from her shirt. A dented gold ring sat next to the tags. Its partner, smooth and worn, hung beside it.

Bradford looked at the titanium ring on his left hand. His throat seized at the thought of wearing Misha’s platinum ring. It wouldn’t fit. Misha’s hands were slimmer, but still roughened from years as a soldier.

“When they excavated the ruins downtown, they set up a page to alert you when your home was next.” She thumbed the engraving in the inner band. “Gift for our fifth anniversary. Everything else burnt down.” The Commander touched the faceted iron ring on her right pinkie. “Canadian engineers wear this ring as a reminder of our obligations and ethics. What we build can kill thousands. My family was part of the cost to save the Earth. I don’t regret it, but I still wonder…”

“No luck finding your relatives in China?”

“None.” The Commander bit down on an apple. “I’m the last of these Lius.”

Bradford refilled her glass. He raised his own. “To the dead.”

“To the dead.” She drained the glass.

The silence seemed less heavy now that they had given tribute to their ghosts. Bradford still felt like he sat with a stranger, not the officer who had laughed with him at the memory of his disastrous divorce with his high school sweetheart.

“That’s enough of me.” The Commander spread fig jam over a cracker and slid it his way. “You never answered my emails.”

Bradford bit his lip. “You know how it is. It was unstable enough that I couldn’t risk the appearance.”

“The wedding invite was the first time you reached out in three years,” the Commander mused over a cocktail sausage, “and I couldn’t come.”

“Where were you at the time?”

“Vancouver. Closer to Shen.” She popped a grape into her mouth. “They came over for Chinese New Year.”

Bradford nodded. He loosened his tie’s stranglehold on his neck. “No place in Montreal?”

“Helping the rebuilding efforts on the West Coast.” The Commander blew out a breath. “I had only the clothes I brought to the base. Might as well have started something new.”

“I know the feeling. Was strange being homeless.” He considered his wineglass. “Council sent me over to DC. Met Mihail there. Dad never thought I’d get married. You know how it is. Married to the job, no time to meet anyone.” Bradford considered his watch. “Mom would’ve liked him.”

The Commander’s lips twisted in a wry smile. She shrugged off her blazer and hung it on the back of her chair. “It took an apocalypse for you to appreciate the finer things in life.”

“Like not being kicked in the nuts when alerting your superior to an alien attack?” He drank. “You’re a menace to wake up, Commander.”

“At least your relatives won’t be bothering you about when you’ll have kids.”

Bradford shuddered. “I’ve taken care of enough soldiers for a lifetime.”

Silence fell once more over the table.

He looked her over, the practiced intelligence officer filing through information as they finished off the wine. The shadows under her eyes were masked by foundation, probably for the day’s meetings. Frown lines were forming in her cheeks. She had a second in command filing reports for her and negotiating in her stead, now that she was the Council-appointed representative for XCOM at the UN.

It was strange knowing that second-in-command wasn’t him.

Bradford had seen the Commander during the worst day of her life: when aliens sent terror attacks to Moscow and Montreal, and XCOM needed the continental bonus from Europe more than they needed the funding from Canada. They could almost guarantee the US would send air support to Canada. The same was not true for the country on the other side of an ocean. Only the Skyranger would make it in time. She chose Moscow, and the city where her family lived had to be firebombed to eliminate the Chryssalids.

The Commander was there on the worst day of his life, when the aliens razed Manhattan, Kansas, and attacked the Alpha Base. 15% of their base personnel had died that day. Bradford would later learn that his parents and siblings’ homes had turned into craters. The Commander had almost been abducted by a Muton. He had head trauma that still gave him terrible headaches if he looked at screens for too long. But they had rallied, they had saved the base, and five months later they had saved the world.

Cups of coffee passed to him while monitoring the Geoscape at 3 AM; his steady hands compressing the gaping wound in her thigh; spotting while she lifted half his weights in iron; cleaning guns for the soldiers during their downtime; off-color jokes lobbed over the corpses of aliens they had dragged from the barracks… He could see the old camaraderie, but it was buried under carefully woven armor. Over the past five years, he had wondered if their steady understanding would ever return.

The table between them was too much distance and too little at the same time.

“You look good,” she said quietly. “Your husband has good taste in ties.”

Bradford touched the slim navy blue tie. The tiepin was the same color as the Hologlobe’s gentle glow and ended in a silver star. “What gave it away?”

The Commander huffed a laugh. “Central, I still remember those horrible vaporwave boxers. The aliens could see them from space.”

“They were comfortable!”

“Eye-searing yellow and blue.” The Commander closed her eyes. “Definitely not regulation.”

“I wasn’t going to waste my brother-in-law’s Christmas gift.”

“I hope Lassie tore them up and freed us from their curse.”

Bradford snorted. “That, and several pairs of my socks.” He reached for his phone. “I have- pictures…?” he looked at her, the question clear in his eyes.

“All dog parents want to show off their babies.” The Commander set her chin upon her hands. “Show us what I saved the world for.”

Bradford turned his phone back on and immediately regretted the decision.

Misha  
  
**Today** 10:55 PM  
  
is she as hot as she is on tv  
are you still in love with her  
send pics <3   
tell your CMDR I say hi!  
  
  


“…Misha says hi,” he finally said.

He was grateful that the Commander waited for him, instead of leaning over the table, to show the picture of Lassie destroying a pair of bright pink and yellow socks.

The Commander pinched the bridge of her nose. “First, she’s adorable. Second, where on earth do you get these abominations?”

“They’re the cheapest good quality clothes I can buy.”

“I wonder why. Central, they don’t go with your complexion.”

He waved his phone in her face. “No one’s looking at my legs.”

“I can’t believe the aliens found us because of your socks.” The Commander took the last piece of cheese. She split it down the middle with a toothpick, and handed him half. “Lassie is saving us all.”

“Saved us five years too late.” Bradford finished the cheese. “Poor Timmy, forever alone in the well.”

“Lassie doesn’t get paid for her hard work,” the Commander said solemnly. “I’ll see to it that she is properly recompensed. Does she take treats, or check?”

For the first time that evening, Bradford laughed without the harsh edge. “Misha spoils that dog enough. Don’t encourage him!”

“He should get a medal as well!”

“Who gets a medal for cleaning up all the coffee cups you left behind?” Bradford asked. “Do I get retroactive bonuses for cleaning duty?”

“You get the base personnel’s ever lasting favor for keeping us both caffeinated.” The Commander pushed her half-empty wineglass. “And the rest of the wine if you want.”

“Finally, the reward I deserve.” Bradford drained the last of the red from her glass. “At least Dionysus appreciates me.”

He set down the wineglass. The Commander was staring at him the same way she’d dissect a battlefield over helmet cams.

“I couldn’t have done it without you.” The sincerity in her voice burned him like good whiskey. “You were XCOM’s backbone. The financial support, the requisitions, the news tracker: all of it made my job easier. A war is not fought on empty stomachs. EXALT kept killing our intelligence officers. You were fighting online to keep public opinion in our favor. I know… some things. The new order hasn’t been as kind to you. But please know that none of this-“ she waved a hand at the room “-would be possible had you not been there every single day.”

Bradford swallowed.

She always could take him apart and put him back together.

He reached across the table and laid a hand over her own.

“If you ever need to walk into hell, give me a call.”

She turned her hand up to clasp his fingers. There it was: the solid warmth of someone who had his back while they were in the foxholes, and would continue to guard him during peace.

“I know.”

He looked at his Commander, and wondered. What would the world be like if he had refused the call to rejoin the American military? He had been on loan to the XCOM project before the aliens attacked. Would he be the one at her side during the UN conferences, arguing for the control of plasma weapons? Would the Americans have shielded him from the trials and investigations that followed if he had remained in XCOM? Shen had stayed with XCOM, but he maintained a tenuous peace with the American military because of his expertise in robotics. The UN had snatched Vahlen for some project on alien biology and remediating the Fog Pod-hit areas. The Commander alone had stood before courts to answer for her decisions during the war. It wasn’t right for any of XCOM’s men to stand alone. Not after all they had done for the world.

He thought about the sharp curve of her smile and a thousand death sentences they had passed.

His phone beeped.

Misha, 11:21 PM

_hey pick up creamer_

_eggs_

_lemons_

_peaches_

_brunch stuff_

_your CMDR welcome for breakfast_

They startled apart.

Her wrist scraped against the silvered rim of his watch. Psionic energy fluttered over the shallow cut. Her inhibitor glowed red and killed the psionics.

Blood beaded at the edges of the cut as she scooped up her phone.

“ _Tabernac_ , I should get back to the embassy.” The Commander sighed. “Tell Mihail I’m sorry we couldn’t meet.”

“He’d love to meet up,” Bradford said. “You haven’t eaten anything besides this today. We have food at home.”

She huffed. “I had ramen this morning.”

“No, you didn’t.” He tapped his cheeks. “You grind your teeth when you’re hungry to stay focused.”

“Don’t know what I’d have done without you during the war.” The Commander’s voice was fond, but the distance was creeping back in. “I’ll be in meetings for the rest of the week. Do you and Mihail have time on Thursday evening?”

“Sorry, Commander, we’re on shift that day.”

“You know I’m not your Commander anymore.” She stood and slid her blazer back on. Her shirt dipped enough for him to see the marks the nanofiber vest had printed into her skin. “I do have a name.”

“Technically, I’m not your Central Officer anymore.” Bradford stood and fished in his wallet for the tip. “But you haven’t called me anything other than Central.”

“Old habits die hard.” The Commander looked away. “It feels… like more time has passed if I address you by name, General.”

“What, is Bradford too intimate?” he joked, but the uneasiness went back into the air.

He remembered that look in her eyes. Big Sky had reported that Zhang wasn’t on board. The Temple Ship was ascending into the heavens, and the Skyranger was returning short a soldier. Missed opportunities, second chances.

“For colleagues.” The Commander blew out a breath. “Don't look at me that way.”

“As in…?”

“Like I’ve hung the stars in the sky. You know we’ll end up on different sides of the battlefield. It’s only a matter of time. Kill it now, before you hesitate later.”

Bradford swallowed down the bitter truth. The proliferation of plasma weaponry would bring new facets to war. Already Shen’s SHIVs had been adapted into prototype Terminator-esque platforms.

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said. “The thing about humans is that we adapt. We care for each other. XCOM didn’t condemn anyone to endless war.”

“I hope so.” The Commander touched the inhibitor at the base of her neck. The red light pulsed, garnering a wince. “For what it’s worth, you made the right choice.”

Bradford crossed the distance between them. He held out his hand. “I told you before, I’ll tell you once again. I’ll fight for humanity.”

She grasped his hand in a firm handshake.

“Prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.” The Commander stopped touching her inhibitor. “On my six?”

Bradford cupped her neck with his free hand. He pressed down hard on the nub of the inhibitor. “On your six.”

Blue psionic tendrils swirled around her eyes.

_They’re with Hazurov_ , she said inside his mind. _They don’t trust me or him. After this, you’ll be on the list_. _Protect him. If either run, go north. Tell them Polaris._

Bradford’s hand spasmed as the inhibitor pulsed. He released his hold. Blood leaked down the Commander’s philtrum.

“Fucking inhibitor,” she muttered, and licked the blood off. Her lips were chapped. The Anthill was notorious for being freezing cold and harsh on uncovered skin. Their sixth most requisitioned item from the medbay was moisturizer. He’d dumped bottles of it onto her desk and joked about opening a Costco.

Five years apart, and she was the same old Commander who’d give her life to save the world.

He tipped her chin up.

* * *

Even after the head’s up, it was still an unpleasant sight to find his handler locked in a staring contest with his shirtless husband.

“Jack, want to explain why your dogwalker won’t allow me to put on a damn shirt?” Misha asked, glaring at O’Brien. Lassie sat at his feet, growling at Bradford’s handler. “He also rifled through my phone. Didn’t know he wanted your dick pics that badly.”

“A matter of national security,” O’Brien said, smiling pleasantly. “We had to be sure you were safe. General Bradford is an important figure after all.”

“Safe. I’ve served the US for fifteen years,” Misha muttered, “I send _one_ flirty text and the NSA crawls up my ass.”

“Wrong agency, Misha. I have the groceries.” Bradford shut the apartment door behind him and dropped the canvas bag on the floor. “The Commander says hello to you. She got us a wedding gift.”

“Take a seat, Bradford.” O’Brien settled back onto the armchair. Bradford passed him the wrapped present. “We need to debrief.”

“This could’ve waited until I was at work,” Bradford scowled. He settled his jacket over Misha’s shoulders. “It’s one in the fucking morning.”

“What did you find?” O’Brien asked. He untied the wine-red fabric from the box.

“The Psi soldiers are alive. The Commander doesn’t know where they are.” Bradford blew out a breath. “She lived in Vancouver three years ago. Nothing else that would be new to you.”

“Everything is of interest to us.” O’Brien leaned forward as he wrote away on his tablet. “Any other news on the soldiers?"

“Which is why you wouldn’t let my husband get dressed?” Bradford looked over Misha’s chest and sides: no cuts or bruises. Lassie refused to stop growling. “No. At least you didn’t shoot my dog.”

“There’s no need for anyone to get hurt. Did the Commander say anything else?”

“We spent thirty minutes going through a bottle of wine and eating in silence,” Bradford reported. Misha slung an arm around his shoulders. “The rest was confirmation of our family’s deaths.”

“Your biometrics indicated there was nothing in the wine. No inebriation?” O’Brien checked the contents of the box. “Two fancy pens, a bottle of ink, two sets of argyle socks, and leather gloves. Do these mean anything to you?”

“No inebriation. The cybernetics did their job. And no,” Bradford said, “I don’t know why those gifts were chosen.”

“Hazurov,” O’Brien said, turning to the man in question, “are these your size? 13 for the socks, large for the gloves?”

Misha replied in the affirmative.

“Bradford, the right gloves with your initials don’t have fingertips. Why is that?”

“I’m right handed. Don’t like things covering my fingers.”

O’Brien studied his face. “They’re not symmetrical.”

“I steady my gun with the left. Hands got cold in the base.”

“So you think it’s tied to your service at XCOM.”

“The Commander had an eye for detail,” Bradford replied blandly.

O’Brien carefully deposited the gift in a plastic bag. “We’ll put these through the scanner. You’ll get the results in a week.”

“Great,” Misha said, fisting one hand in Lassie’s collar, “are you done? Can I finally put away my groceries?”

“One last thing.” O’Brien tapped his pen against his tablet. “Previous reports suggested that you and the Commander had an emotional attachment, Bradford.”

Although O’Brien didn’t have a drop of psionic potential, Bradford knew the other man was trying to scare him.

“If you mean fire-forged friends while the world fell apart, that's right.”

“Was there anything else?”

“No.”

O’Brien didn’t buy it. “The Commander is an attractive woman.”

“Who was also my superior officer, and occupied with saving the Earth.” Bradford gave his boss his best _I can’t believe you’d imply this_ stare. “Good soldiers follow their orders.”

“Your husband’s texts–“

“My husband strives to emulate his former superior, in their dedication to their work, and in their devotion to protecting the people of Earth,” Misha cut in. “I joke with him to make him relax. Also, I have eyes. If Jack met Chris Evans or Lucy Liu, I’d also go, _are they hot_.”

“You do have good taste,” Bradford mused.

His handler looked between the two of them.

“I’ll see you at the office in the morning, Bradford. My apologies for intruding, Mr. Hazurov.” O’Brien stood. “Have a good night.”

“Have a good morning,” Misha said pointedly, then escorted him out.

Bradford dropped off the couch to ruffle Lassie’s fur. “That’s a good girl… looked after Misha for me?” he murmured. His dog panted, the tension evaporating off as she flopped onto her belly. “Thank you for not biting my handler.”

The door locks clicked. “I hate that man,” Misha hissed.

Bradford shushed him. He scanned the room with his phone: no new bugs. The latent psionic power within him didn’t stir at any potential danger.

“I don’t like how he treats you.” Bradford undid the buttons of his waistcoat. “This isn’t the 60s, and you’re not a spy.”

“They’re ramping up the paranoia. Won’t be surprised if they make you wear an inhibitor soon, and you barely have enough power to make sparks.” The fridge opened. Glass clinked against glass. “You had a good night?”

“It was… good, to see an old friend,” Bradford allowed himself to say.

“You never answered my question.”

Bradford sighed. “Yes, she is good looking, and yes,” he thumbed his lips, bringing on the phantom taste of blood, “she could snap my neck and I’d thank her for it. You’re an absolute disaster.”

“Not like you're any better, Jack.” Misha finished putting away the groceries. He flopped onto Bradford’s lap. “I _was_ going to nail you, but after that…”

He stroked his husband’s forehead. “Work always knows how to kill the mood.”

“As if the constant emails aren’t bad enough.” Misha went quiet. He cupped his husband’s face. “If XCOM reactivated tomorrow, would you rejoin them?”

“In a heartbeat.” Bradford closed his eyes and leaned into Misha’s touch. “Something would be going on. They’d need an expert on hand.”

“Here’s hoping things get better.”

Misha’s hands were smoother. No scars from psionics, no calluses from working with steel girders. The Commander radiated heat like a furnace. Misha cooled him back down.

“I’ll have you. That’s all I need right now.”

Bradford pushed away the thoughts of _what if_. Those were for tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just emotional constipation, the fic.  
> It's my headcanon that Bradford buys terrible clothes out of uniform, because he doesn't care how he looks at 3 AM if he doesn't have to work.


End file.
